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<title>What if? by OldProf1942</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466937">What if?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldProf1942/pseuds/OldProf1942'>OldProf1942</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Death in Paradise</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:39:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,195</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldProf1942/pseuds/OldProf1942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if that snippet, that teaser, DI Parker and DS Cassell walking away.  Richard waves, Camille turns.  What if they meet again?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Camille Bordey/Richard Poole</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>What if?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>What If?<br/>To Meet Again<br/>Camille and Richard</p>
<p>          **********</p>
<p>          ‘Mon Dieu’, Camille thought, ‘they are finally gone. All that gushing, hard to believe they were a pair of forty somethings. Ah, ‘l‘amour’ it is an eternal force’. DI Parker and DS Cassell, bickering and bantering twenty-four seven. Well, at least they had done something about it. They had bought a lovely home in the hills only a few blocks from the station. A civil service and a long weekend honeymoon courtesy of the Commissioner. They had moved out of the shack and into their new home. J. P. and the temp from Guadeloupe could hold down the fort for the four day ‘lovefest’!<br/>          Nearly six years, she had been gone. So little had changed. She was both sad and glad at the same time. Glad, because Saint Marie was still her home. Maman was Mayor of Honore as well as proprietress of the finest bar and bistro in the Caribbean. Sad, because Fidel, Juliette and darling Rosie were gone. Fidel had never gotten over Richard’s death, so he had transferred to another island. And even Dwayne was gone. He had left to make a final attempt at a relationship with his father. No one knew where he was or what had transpired.<br/>          When the Commissioner had called her in Paris eight weeks ago, Camille was primed for a change. When she had left Saint Marie for the undercover position in France, she was running from a ghost. Oh, she had convinced everyone that it was a career move. But she had to stop crying herself to sleep every night. She had to stop the resentment she felt looking at Richard’s desk occupied by another. Everyplace, everyone, everything reminded her of HIM! Saint Marie had been her home; but back then it had become, all Richard.<br/>          It had been a good move professionally; she was now a Chief Inspector. Ha! An undercover bureaucrat. Well at least she didn’t have to play hooker or stripper anymore. The Commissioner’s call was all she needed to be on the next available plane. Someone was trying to blackmail her mother. Upon return, Camille found that Catherine, as Mayor of Honore had been accused of corruption. When that ploy had failed, she had then been ‘framed’ for the murder of one of her waitresses. Camille had taken charge of the case and within two weeks had brought the criminals to justice and exonerated her mother. Her reward? Two more gunshot wounds and a six week stay in the ‘Saint Marie Hopital General’. The last two weeks, as she faded in and out of sleep, he was always there. Standing quietly, in his ubiquitous wool suit, he wore a gentle, warm smile that made her feel that all would be well. A dream, hallucination, who cared; it made her feel better.<br/>          **********<br/>          The sand felt good between her toes. And there on the rail was Harry, or his great grandson. She looked up the beach and there he was, suit, briefcase, and that same little smile he had shown at the hospital. This time there was a brief, almost embarrassed wave. She turned for the shack. The wounds, shock, drugs, stress, fatigue, PTSD, but at least these were pleasant hallucinations. Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder.<br/>          “You running away? ………. You’re the reason I’m here.”<br/>          “But Richard, you are dead! Dead! You can’t be here touching me. Tu es mort!’ You…..Are…..Dead! Oh, Richard why did you have to die? Why? Why? Why?” Tears flooded her eyes. Her voice trailed off to a weak whimper.<br/>          “It will take time, Luv. But you will come to understand.”<br/>          “I drove my guides to distraction. I was so logical, and I wanted only logical answers. And all they did was smile. Oh, it drove me insane. I wanted to smack them…….. And they were my grandparents! The grandparents who had died when I was a baby. But they loved me. Then I came to understand. There were no masters manipulating our futures. Fate had no hand in when we departed. We were the victims of our own devising. I was stabbed, you were shot, we each thought that we had the situation well in hand. Thus, we ended up here, as we are. A new version of us, the next step, as it were. We are here in this state because we love each other.<br/>          “Richard, you are Richard?”<br/>          “Yes Camille, I am Richard, and you are Camille and we have passed over, moved on, died.”<br/>          “But Richard, I can see you, I can hear you, I can touch you, I can feel you. You’re breathing. You are real, I am real. How can I be dead? How can you be alive?” She pulled away, touching her own body. Weakly she whispered; “Is this madness, am I insane?” She stumbled toward the shack, stopping and wheeling around, expecting to see that Richard had vanished. Bur no, he was still there. “So, is Harry dead too? Huh?<br/>          “Yes Luv, Harry is dead and with us.”<br/>          “So, he loved us, and we loved him and here we are all together?”<br/>          “Yes, a remarkable system actually, once you come to understand and accept the efficaciousness of it ………”<br/>          “Richard shut up! You……Are……So…….English! I could kill you with my bare hands! ‘Tu me rends dinge!’”<br/>          “I make you crazy? How do you think I felt? You, flitting about Paris all these years. Courting danger, nearly suicidal. I can’t begin to tell you how that would have complicated things here.”<br/>          “And where were you all those nights I cried my self to sleep?” She clutched Richard’s lapels and pressed her forehead to his chest.<br/>          “I was there, my love. And, even in my new state I can feel the pain of those I love. So, every night of your tears, my heart broke. All I could do was whisper ‘I love you’.”<br/>          “Oh Richard, we’ve gotten off to as bad a start in death as we did in life. What’s wrong with us?”<br/>          “You are too French!”<br/>          “You are soooooo English!”<br/>          He kissed the top of her head. She lifted her face to his and he caressed her cheek and then slowly, ever so slowly kissed her as she had never been kissed before. It was feather light yet conveyed a passion she had never known. It was otherworldly. It was all she needed, wanted, and desired. She hugged him with a desperation that spoke of a lifelong need. Their bodies locked in a head-to-toe embrace, She felt a stirring that was totally new. Her body was responding to his and, OH MY she could feel his responding to hers!<br/>          “Richard, ah Richard, can we, are we able, I mean, in this new state, Oh Richard, are we fully functional in this new, wherever we are and what ever we are. Can we……..”<br/>          “Yes, my dear, sweet, wonderful, love!”<br/>          They mounted the stairs and entered the shack. Harry watched.<br/>          “Richard, what if someone.”<br/>          “No one can see us Luv.”</p>
<p>          “But Richard, what if ummm hummm ummmmm! Oh……..Richard.”</p>
<p><br/>          Paradise? Heaven? One in the same?</p>
<p>          Happy 'Normal' New Year!</p>
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